Emet m'Tsiyon

Sunday, July 27, 2014

How the Main Stream Media (in France) Falsify the News about Jews and Israel

Prof. Shmuel Trigano, who writes a French blog on Times of Israel, recommended this excellent analysis of how the French press on the whole falsified what happened during the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish demo-cum-riot by French Arabs/Muslims and French "leftists" on 13 July 2014. We have quoted from Prof Trigano before on this blog.

This is really an excellent article for understanding some of the methods of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish propaganda. A linguist takes apart how these everyday techniques are used in the specific case of an AFP [agence France presse] article on the recent anti-Jewish, anti-Israel riots and demos in France. It is written in terms that are easy enough to understand, like a superior explication de texte. Only in French unfortunately. I will translate the essential points when I have more time.

The AFP article uses all sorts of rhetorical tricks: minimizing what happened on the Rue de la Roquette near the synagogue, blaming Jews --in this case the LDJ (Ligue de Defense Juive)-- for the attack on the synagogue, denyingor omitting the Judeophobic/antisemitic nature of the slogans of the march, falsely claiming a "feminine" character for the demo/march, thus softening its brutal, hostile/enraged image, giving ample space to the self-justifications by marchers/demonstrators while allowing only a perfunctory opportunity for an official Jewish spokesman to offer his opinion, while qualifying his statement as a claim on his part. Etc.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Professor William Polk, an Academic & Diplomatic Authority Promotes Big Lies for 60 years Now

Prof William Polk has had a double career, academic and diplomatic, head of Middle East policy planning at the State Dept. For many many years he has been promoting the big lie of Arab innocence. And he still is. Hence he has done great damage, especially since he has had his academic authority to lend credence to his pro-Arab propaganda lies. If anybody does not think that the State Department has been hostile to Israel since the beginning, one of the pieces of evidence for the affirmative is the career and words and deeds of Polk. Here he is in a fresh blast of baloney, repeating the same lie of Arab innocence. But he is careful to denounce the Holocaust and Western Judeophobia, which he feels he needs to do in order to establish credibility and moral legitimacy for his insidious claims of Arab innocence.

For their own interests, the British and then the Americans just closed their eyes to the developing tragedy; both were content to have a poor, defenseless Asian peoplepay the price for Western anti-Semitism. The Jewish community grew, appropriated most of the best land (largely by purchase from absentee owners) and benefitted from massive infusions of foreign money (now totaling well over $100 billion or more than all the aid programs for the rest of the world). Meanwhile, the Jewish fate in Europe moved toward the Holocaust.

What did that actually mean? If I were a Jew in Germany in the 1930s, I would have gone to America and if I could not get in -- some could not -- to Palestine; if I were an Arab at almost any time from 1920 onward, I would have tried to stop the flood. The real culprit is neither the Jew nor the Palestinian. It is us. Anti-Semitism is a Western, not an Asian, disease. [my emph.]

List of lies:

1) before WW One the Muslims in this country saw themselves as part of the mighty Ottoman empire and were loyal to it. They did not see themselves as a "poor, defenseless Asian people," nor as a separate "Palestinian" people. Scions of leading Muslim families served in the Ottoman imperial service . Husseinis, Khalidis and Abdul-Hadis held high positions. Rashid Khalidi, one of the family, is now a professor at Columbia University in New York and is a friend of President Obama.

2) Arabs/Muslims/Palestinian Arabs/ were not guilty of antisemitism which was purely a Western disease, so he claims. This is false since Judeophobia is inherent in Islam generally [although it can be interpreted away if one wants]. Here is a documented article about Judeophobia in Islam and especially on the part of Palestinian Arab Muslims. It also shows how Jews were ill treated specifically in Jerusalem.

Polk plays a rather elegant trick with this statement by so liberally and generously and open-mindedly taking the guilt upon "Us." But the purpose is to depict the Jews as guilty for taking a land away from the helpless, innocent Palestinian Arabs who had never done them any harm. Supposedly. Moreover, Polk mentions the Holocaust but does not admit that Arabs or Palestinian Arabs particularly took part in it, especially the chief Palestinian Arab leader, Haj Amin el-Husseini who spent most of the WW2 years in Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, their satellite states in eastern Europe and the Nazi-occupied countries. Husseini visited Nazi murder camps in Poland.

3) About real estate in the country. First he claims that the Zionist Jews "appropriated most of the best land." That word appropriated means took by force or usurped unfairly with some amount of coercion and/or legal swindling. However, he then corrects himself by writing that Jews/Zionists obtained the land "by purchase." So which is it? This is deliberate double talk.

Polk goes on:

In the "one state," the Arabs will be the subjugated minority with few rights and little or any security -- they will be the "Jews" of an Israeli Germany or an Israeli Imperial Russia, cooped up in ghettos, imprisoned, driven into exile or subjected to a final partition. [my emph.]

In fact, the experience of Israeli Arabs shows that that outcome is unlikely to say the least. Maybe it is a projection of what Polk knows about the Jewish experience as dhimmis in Arab/Muslim states. Moreover, it is an old story that Judeophobes like to reverse the picture of Jewish oppression in Christian and Muslim lands and charge the Jews with being oppressors, persecutors, etc.

So Polk has been dangerous for some 60 years and is still going strong. Here is my critique of Polk and of his anti-Israel propaganda book from the 1950s. Polk's book, Backdrop to Tragedy (1957) is truly disgraceful.

Monday, July 07, 2014

Joseph's Tomb -- Updated to 2014

Arab mobs attacked Joseph's Tomb today. The first time that had happened was in the year 2000, on the same day as the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The mobs killed one Israeli soldier, as it happened a Druze Israeli whose name was Yusuf, that is, Joseph. I wrote up the story and gave historical background here. One of the claims made by the Arab rioters and their supporters in 2000 was that the tomb was not that of the Biblical Joseph but of a Muslim holy man or shaykh also named Yusuf. One of the provisions of the ill-fated Oslo accords was that Israeli troops would guard Joseph's Tomb which is now located within the city of Nablus. I don't recall any Arab statement, official or otherwise, that explained why Arabs were attacking the tomb --literally trying to take it apart stone by stone after Israeli troops were withdrawn.

Arab mobs have again attacked the tomb. To me, the repeated attacks on the tomb by Arabs demonstrate that they see it as a Jewish holy place, not a Muslim holy site. Otherwise they would try to protect it, not harm it.

Times of Israel reported:

Palestinians tried to burn Joseph’s Tomb in the city of Nablus Sunday night, PA sources said. Palestinian security forces using tear gas prevented the rioters from the reaching the site, sacred to Jews, Christians, Samaritans, and Muslims.

About

The world swims in lies. Who doesn't know that? Even the dupes are told there are lies about. We aim to dispel the fog of lies, especially about Israel, like our prophets of old and our poets like Yehudah haLevi.
We feature historic sources, documents, excerpts from the classics, etc.
How shall I render my vows and my bonds, While yet
Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains?
The false prophets cry Peace, and there is no peace.
A new post every 2 or 3 days.

About Me

צלום דבורה בת יהודה לייב ז''ל
Dvoyreh bas Yehudah Leyb, Eliyahu's mother. My own photo will have to await more peaceful times.
I have been an observer of
the human comedy, and the human tragedy for many years.